In February, Mistress Agnes and I are
traveling to attend the Medieval Mindset RUSH in Calontir. This will be a full
day filled with classes all on the medieval mindset. Here is a preview of my
notes for the class I will teach on folk tales and the medieval mindset.

The Beginning

My fascination with tales and the
medieval period started long before I joined the SCA. About 20 years ago, in
fact, when I experienced one of those medieval dream moments, out of the blue,
on a cold December evening in England.

I had been in England for a couple of
years, living about an hour by train west of London. As with most Americans
living in England at the time, I had many visitors from the states. That
December was no different. It was Christmas Eve, and my visitors and I ventured
out to the Royal Standard, (http://www.rsoe.co.uk/ ) a pub that had been
serving beer for over 900 years. It was a cold, snowy night, and by 10 pm, we
were the only guests in the old bar.

The old bar was lit by candles and a
wood fire in the large fireplace. There were no electric lights. The
proprietress and her husband came out with barley wine and champagne and
settled in at our table. And, we started sharing stories and Christmas Carols
in the same way people have done in that very spot for almost a thousand years.
It opened a window for me into the medieval mind.

What do tales tell about the culture, people,
and mindset of the storyteller and their audiences? This article includes some
ideas about what folk and fairy tales are, a timeline of when tales were
written down in the middle ages, using tales to gain insight.

What is a Folk Tale? A Fairy Tale?

Folk tales and fairy tales are at the
juncture of myth, history, and local lore. "The gods of ancient mythology
were changed into the demi-gods and heroes of ancient poetry, these demi-gods
again become, at a later age the principal characters of our nursery tales".
The myths evolved over time with the evolution of culture and language through
migration.

There are several definitions of Folk
and Fairy Tales: Some believe they are "a complex assemblage of certain
norms, certain impulsions, a canvas of the moment’s tradition, which
interpreters enliven with the embellishments of individual creation" [[2]]
Others differentiate between folk and fairy tale.

·Characters from "real life", such as husbands, wives,
peasants, rascals, and the occasional doctor or priest.

·Most folk tales have a plot where one person takes another’s
goods, money, or honor. Most don’t have a happy ending.

For example, in contrast to Fairy Tales
with the proverbial happy endings, the folk tales deal not with "the joys
of getting married, but about the
difficulties of beingmarried."
[[4]] Folk
tales are easy to follow and easy to remember, in part because they deal with
familiar aspects of the human condition. [[5]]

Types of folk tale

There are three basic types of folk
tale:

1.Traditions
handed down about famous people and events of national importance

2.Memories
of local events that have been passed down, and often significantly changed in
transmission.

Fairy Tales, on the other hand deal with
magic and enchantment through connecting with the people in fairyland. These
fairy people have many names, but often were just called "the little
people" to avoid invoking the power of saying their actual name. The word
"Fairy" comes from the Latin "fatum", meaning to enchant;
through the French word "fey" or "feerie", meaning
illusion. The origins of fairy tales include: the gods and demi-gods of
myths, myths of the earth and nature, and the myths from ancient India.

While we cannot study tales that were
told, we can study those tales that were written down. In the following
timeline, you can see how the tales migrated through time and space.

Timeline of Tales

As we cannot trace the oral transmission
of tales, we must work with the literary transmission. Here is a brief
timeline from Laura Kready’s book, A Study of Fairy Tales.[[7]]

4000 BC Tales
of Ancient Egypt, written on papyrus

600 BC Homeric
Legends

550 AD The
Panchatantra, from India, Animal Tales

10th Century Panchatantra
– Arabic version

10th Century Reynard
the Fox in Latin

1000 AD The
King Book of Persia by Ferdousee

11th Century Panchatantra
– Greek version

1148 Ysengrimus
poem about the Fox, Ghent

1180 Reinhart
– 12 tales in German

12th Century Panchatantra
– Persian version

1200 AD Sanskrit
Tales

1230 Roman
de Renard, 27 tales in French

1250 Reinaert,
composed near Ghent

13th Century The
Book of Sinbad (Hebrew, Arabic, Persian versions)

13th Century Of the
Vox and the Wolf (Reynard tales), English Poem

1326 The
Gesta Romanorum – Latin tales of morality

1481 Reynard
the Fox, England

1485 Historie
von Reynaert de Vos, Dutch

1548 The
Thousand and One Arabian Nights

1550 Straparola’s
Nights – 21 stories from the lips of 10 women

The Reynard Tale addresses the basic
struggle for existence, which was characteristic of Feudal life. In the tale,
cunning opposes force and triumphs over it. The adventurous hero is appealing
because of his ability to adapt himself to circumstances and to master them.

Using Tales to Gain Insight

In this way, folk tales from a particular
time and place, can again be a lens for us to look back and try to understand
the perspectives of this people who knew, told, and listened to these stories.

Some Guidelines for Using Folk Tales to
Interpret the Past

·Understand the type of evidence (written, oral, archaeological)

·Understand the history, cultural and religious beliefs

·Use reliable folklore.

·Understand the local contexts.

"We must, learn the details of the
conditions in which their lives are led, and come to know the countryside in
all its aspects, and in all its moods, winter and summer, night and day.

We must pay careful attention even to material things, if we are to appreciate
how the countryman's knowledge enables him to make good use of natural
productions for making his tools, buildings, foods, and medicines" [[8]]

Even if we have a strong understanding
of the history and culture of a place and time, the tales we have, have been
filtered by every storyteller that has touched the tale.

This is what I see as one of the most
difficult issues in using folk tales to help understand the medieval mind.
Separating the myth or original story from the local interpretations of the
story, which might give us clues into the medieval mind.

It is through the storyteller’s
interpretations that we might be able to see into the teller’s mind. The
interpretations add a layer that consists not only of the editor’s language
skills, but also of their knowledge, beliefs, culture, and historical time-period.

For example: We have all heard that the
Victorian age romanticized much of the history of daily life in the medieval
ages, part of that interpretation was done by taking out the dirty, ugly,
painful, and immoral bits to meet the moral expectations of Victorian society.
[[10]]
Does the interpretation tell us more about the original sources/culture of the
tale or more about Victorian morals and society?

Two Example Tales

I will give examples of the first two
types of folk tales here – tales that are traditions of famous people and
events and tales that are memories of local event that change over the years.

A
traditional Tale from the Fens

The fens were a wide expanse of
marshland in Eastern England. Several centuries ago, they were drained and are
now agricultural flatlands. During the middle ages, the Fens were considered
by some a scary and dangerous place. Travelers not familiar with the marshes
often become lost and stories were told of worse fates than wandering lost.
The Fen folk were considered somewhat queer, insular, and protective of their
own. Camping one year in the modern era in East Anglia, I had the opportunity
to learn first hand some tales of "those" folk who were native to the
area. Famous medieval towns in this area of England include Cambridge and Bury
St. Edmonds, and Ely.

In this tale from the Fens, a man from
the Fens, "an outlaw" befriends King Canute, which aids him in
exacting revenge on the local monastery for injustices to his family.

How
Littleport Began

One
day while traveling in the northeastern part of the Kingdom, the King decided
he wanted some time alone to fish. He arranged for a boat and left all his men
camped on a low hill and entered the Fens marshland. He appeared to be a common
man. Appearances, however can be deceiving. His crown was securely placed in
the bottom of the boat, and his men were on watch for any signal of trouble.

Suddenly,
as often happens in the Fens, the weather shifted from bright warm sunshine to
grey fog. In addition, the tides shifted and Canute felt the boat being drawn
out to sea. He took shelter from the tides by going up a small creek and found
refuge in the tiny hut of a Fenman called Legres.

Legres,
was dirt poor, but there was a warm fire, and he offered the stranger ale,
food, and a dry place to sleep. In the course of the night, the stranger heard
the tale of Legres' wrongs. Legres told of his wife being carried off and raped
by the monks at the Grange. He told of being flogged when he attempted to
rescue her, and of having the vicious dogs set on them as they made their
escape. He told of how his wife died the next year, giving birth to a son.

That
was 18 years ago, he told the stranger, and every year on the boy’s birthday
Legres said he killed a monk and cut a notch on his dagger. Legres explained
that this night the boy was out tending to the animals.

When
they settled down for the night, the King found the fleas were so vicious that
he could not sleep. As soon as the rain and wind quieted, the king quietly
left the hut and wrapped his cloak close around himself, and settled into the
bottom of his boat to fall asleep.

The
sun rose early the next morning and the bright rays warmed and woke the king.
He heard splashes and peered over the edge of his boat to see a beautiful girl
who came down to the water to bathe. After she bathed, she covered herself
with mud and put on boy's clothes and went up to the hut, not knowing she had
been seen. Canute realized that she was Legres' son.

Later
that morning, Canute helps Legres exact revenge on the monks at the Grange. He
signaled to his men by flashing his crown and they attacked the Grange and
killed a number of the dissolute monks. The rest were set to digging and
building, and a little town was founded, with a brewery and a mill, a port and
an inn, and by the Kings decree, Legres was in charge of the whole town.

The End

There
are several potential perspectives into the medieval mindset in this tale. For
example, the value of simple comforts on a cold rainy night, and the desire to
have an omnipotent authority on earth that will protect the common man from
oppression. Briggs claimed this mindset can be found in many tales and ballads
and is characteristic of the peasants' risings in medieval times." [[12]]

There is also the mindset that fate may
suddenly intervene and all life’s basic needs, and more, would be met.

The second type of tale is one that has
been told and re-told through the centuries, localized to specific time and
places. By comparing these tales, we might glean some insight into the beliefs
and cultural attitudes of a specific time. The example of this type of tale,
here, is the Fatal Hair-Do. The first version of the Fatal Hairdo is from the Speculum Laicorum, a late
thirteenth-century collection of English exempla. Exempla are anecdotes that
illustrate a moral point, often used in medieval sermons.

A lady in Oxfordshire took so long over
the adornment of her hair that she never arrived at church until just before
the end of Mass. Everyone noticed her entrance; she was beautiful, walking tall
and proud, with her mass of golden curls. Every Sunday it was the same, until
one Sunday. That day, the devil descended upon her head in the form of a
spider, gripping her hair with its legs. She was beside herself with fright,
but could find no way to remove the spider. Neither prayer, nor exorcism, nor
holy water, worked. Finally, the local abbot displayed the holy sacrament
before the spider and she is saved.

A slightly different version can be
found in Robert of Brunne’s Handlyng Synne from 1308 [[15]]. In
this version, the woman was extremely proud of her hair and headdresses. After
she died, she appeared to her husband’s squire to warn them against the sin of
vanity and pride.

A final medieval version has the woman
coming back from the dead, tormented by toads and scorpions on her head.
Toads, scorpions, and fire were associated with the devil and hell. [[16]]

While these tales are about the sins of
vanity and pride, the first exempla, shows the potential for redemption when
the Abbot saves the woman just in the nick of time. In the next two exempla,
there is the medieval notion that torture and punishment after death relate to
the sin committed in life; for example, the torture for a sin of vanity of
one’s head/hair would focus on the person’s head. This is a common theme in
medieval folk tales and may offer some insight into the medieval mind about sin
and punishment.

There are several modern versions, most
associated with massive teased hairdos. One version was of a young girl, who
spent hours teasing her hair, and applying hair spray. She stopped needing to
wash her hair because it was so lacquered. Eventually, spiders and bugs took up
residence and their bites and stings caused her painful death.

In another version, the girl becomes
mysteriously ill at school and a fellow student sees blood running down the
girls neck. Despite being rushed to the hospital, she dies, purportedly from
wasp stings.

In conclusion, these tales of the fatal
hairdo show the shift from the medieval beliefs that God was central to all
actions in life and death to modern notions of the importance of cleanliness.

Copyright 2009, 2010 by Paula
Brobst, PO Box 509, LaPorte, CO 80535. <ellaanne at gmail.com>.
Permission is granted for republication in SCA-related publications, provided
the author is credited. Addresses change, but a reasonable attempt
should be made to ensure that the author is notified of the publication and if
possible receives a copy.

If this article is reprinted in
a publication, I would appreciate a notice in the publication that you found
this article in the Florilegium. I would also appreciate an email to myself, so
that I can track which articles are being reprinted. Thanks. -Stefan.